Before.

A convoy of bulldozers arrived on Tuesday morning at the outskirts of the Arab village Al-Mofkra near the town of Avigail and demolished a mosque that had been built illegally. The mosque was built by the villagers, members of the Hamada clan, in violation of a court settlement and as a challenge against legal construction in Avigail, Jewish Voice reports.

The mosque demolition followed a Regavim movement’s appeal to the Supreme Court, after the movement’s field coordinator, Oved Arad, had determined that the Arabs built the mosque illegally. These same Arab villagers had gone even further and continued to build and pave the mosque despite the explicit prohibition by the judges.

At the hearing on the petition a month ago, the Supreme Court justices urged the Civil Administration to demolish the mosque as soon as possible. President of the Supreme Court Justice Grunis even gained some notoriety at the time, when he joked that illegal structures in Judea and Samaria should be “killed when they’re young.”

The Regavim movement released a statement saying “the law should be kept regarding the Palestinians, too. The demolition of the mosque is a warning to the residents of Al-Mofkra and the entire South Hebron Hills, that they must obey the law and build only in designated areas.”

Regavim officials said they “will continue to document Palestinian delinquency, and each illegal construction will be handled in the judicial and public arenas.”

You’re looking at the demolition of five buildings in the Ulpana neighborhood of the Jewish town of Beit-El, north of Jerusalem, November 27, 2012. The High Court has decided that the multi-family dwellings built by Jews were on a privately owned Palestinian land, and so they had to be demolished, in the name of justice, liberty and the pursuit of really crazy and wasteful choices.

In a country of law, if such a dispute erupts more than 10 years after an enclave of residential buildings had been erected and families had set roots there for close half a generation – a dispute between the land’s sellers, a dispute over a stupid missing document, a dispute fueled by “evidence” provided by the Ramallah-based officials of the great democratic state of Palestine – then the two sides would have gone to court and debated their opposing positions; then the court would have decided. And should the court have decided that the half of the Arab family that disagreed with the sale of the land was right, then the same court would have decided on an amount of money that either the other half of the family, or the innocent buyers, were to pay in compensation.

But to demolish the buildings? What insane, sociopathic judge would have decided on demolition as a remedy for injustice?

When the right wins the day – again – in the coming elections, before we do anything else, before we implement the Judge Levi recommendations, before we protest yet another Palestinian move for independence that reneges on all our mutually signed agreements, before we send the first IAF plane to hit back at Gaza for this or that volley of rockets at our civilians, before we do any of that – we must change the way we pick supreme court justices.

In a civilized country, the sovereign, which is the people (you, me, my wife, all of us) choose representatives and they decide who will be our high court judges. Once they decide, those judges are no longer under anybody’s thumb, totally independent. But to get there they must receive our approval.

Not so in Israel, where our elected representatives are a minority in the body that picks high court justices, and the older justices basically nominate their friends, family, the nice girl from Apt. B-2.

This has to stop, now, this is a travesty, this court is not enjoying the support of the people, it is, in fact, an enemy of the people. And the nice thing is, the people have the power to change this. So, let’s.

Hundreds of homes damaged beyond repair during Hurricane Sandy will be readied for demolition by New York City workers according to an article in the New York Times.

Over 200 homes in Queens, Staten Island and Brooklyn either burned down or were washed out to sea.

Manhattan hospitals New York University Medical Center and Bellevue are still working to recover from damage and contamination caused by flooding.

According to the report, there are still thousands of families who have no electricity and are unable to live in their homes.

Israel’s Supreme Court ruled that the Judea and Samaria outpost of Migron must be evacuated by Sept. 4.

All 50 families must leave the outpost, the court ruled on Wednesday, in response to a petition filed by the families requesting a delay in the eviction until the modular homes being built for the evacuees are completed. They reportedly will not be habitable for several weeks.

The outpost’s homes must be razed by Sept. 11, with the exception of the 17 families who claimed in a petition to the court that they have purchased or repurchased the plots on which their homes are located.

Those families also had asked the court to allow them to remain in their homes – a request that essentially was denied by Wednesday’s ruling.

In March, the Supreme Court ruled against an attempt by the government to postpone to 2015 the demolition of Migron, which some Palestinians have claimed is built on their land. Deferrals against the demolition stretch back to 2006.

The settlers, who deny that Migron is built on private Palestinian land, had signed a deal with the Netanyahu government agreeing to relocate to a nearby hill.

The Migron outpost in the West Bank was not evacuated as scheduled.

The eviction had been scheduled for Tuesday, the same day that the Israeli Supreme Court conducted a hearing on a petition filed by the residents requesting a delay in the eviction until the modular homes being built for the evacuees are completed. They reportedly will not be habitable for several weeks.

A decision is not expected for at least several days.

Some 17 families who claim they have purchased or repurchased the plots that their homes are located on also have petitioned the court to be allowed to stay in their homes.

In March, the Supreme Court ruled against an attempt by the government to postpone to 2015 the demolition of Migron, which the Palestinians say is built on their land. Deferrals against the demolition stretch back to 2006.

The settlers, who deny that Migron is built on private Palestinian land, had signed a deal with the Netanyahu government agreeing to relocate to a nearby hill.

Residents of Migron said they will not leave the Samarian outpost until the Israeli Supreme Court rules on a request to halt their evacuation.

Earlier this month the residents had asked the court to stop the evacuation as some work to verify claims that they had purchased, or repurchased, the land on which the homes are located.

The eviction is scheduled for Tuesday — the day the court is scheduled to address the case. The residents say they will not leave before the hearing. The Defense Ministry has called on the residents to leave peacefully beginning in the morning.

Approximately 50 families live on the outpost, which is 14 miles north of Jerusalem. Some 17 families are contesting the evacuation, saying they own the land on which their homes are built.

Temporary homes for the Migron families have been established in the nearby community of Psagot, but the Migron residents will only be able to move into the homes if they leave their outpost voluntarily, according to reports.

In March, the Supreme Court ruled against an attempt by the government to postpone to 2015 the demolition of Migron, which some Palestinians say is built on their land. Deferrals against the demolition stretch back to 2006.

The settlers, who deny that Migron is built on private Palestinian land, had signed a deal with the Netanyahu government agreeing to relocate to a nearby hill.

Though leaders in Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria decried the failure of Wednesday’s Knesset vote to overturn the destruction of five apartment buildings in Beit El, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu approved a major new construction plan to erect 300 new homes in the town, with 551 additional homes approved in four other locations.

The bill was voted down 69:22, sealing the fate of 30 residences in the Ulpana neighborhood in the pastoral and mountainous Benjamin Region.  Following the rejection of the bill, protesters and police clashed outside the Knesset and at the entrance to Jerusalem.

Baruch Gordon, Director of Development for Beit El Institutions, expressed his outrage at the outcome of the Knesset vote.  ”A great injustice is being perpetrated here against the Jews of Beit El’s Ulpana Hill, many of whom are indigenous residents of Israel for generations,” he told the Jewish Press.   “The ownership of the disputed land has not been determined by any court. The Supreme court openly admits this, and says it is relying on the Netanyahu government policy decision to demolish the houses. The absurdity is that there is a simultaneous case in the Jerusalem District Court to determine who is the rightful owner.”

“The Supreme Court openly wrote in its decision that it has no patience to wait for the outcome of this legitimate district court case which may take years. It wants the buildings demolished now,” Gordon said.   “This court decision is pure prejudice against the religious-Zionist public in Judea and Samaria. The court would have never issued such a ruling against Israelis elsewhere in Israel or against Arabs.”

Though indignation toward the Prime Minister’s failure to intervene on behalf of Ulpana Hill runs high,  Prime Minister Netanyahu approved 851 new homes on Wednesday evening – 300 for Beit El, and 551 to be divided among Karnei Shomron, Efrat, and other locations in Gush Etzion.

In a statement made Wednesday night, after the defeat of the bill, Prime Minister Netanyahu  said he is “committed to upholding the law and I am committed to uphold the settlement enterprise, and I tell you that there is no contradiction between the two.”  He further stated that he believes the bill would have ultimately harmed settlement in Judea and Samaria, whereas his plan to expand the communities in areas not under dispute in the courts would strengthen the settlement enterprise.

“We are not strangers in Beit El. We are not strangers in Judea and Samaria. This is the Land of our Patriarchs. This is where our identity was formed,” Prime Minister Netanyahu said.  “I say this here in Jerusalem, the capital of Israel, and I say this everywhere in the world.”

Nonetheless, Prime Minister Netanyahu noted that the day on which the final attempt to stop the destruction failed “has been a complicated and difficult day.”

“Moving homes from their location, even if it is only five homes, is certainly not an action that this Government rejoices in doing,” he said.

Prime Minister Netanyahu also reiterated his commitment to establishing a ministerial committee on settlement in order to “ensure that the Government’s policy of strengthening settlement is implemented.”

He concluded by stating that “there is no government that supports, or will support, settlement more than my government,” noting that his government has withstood serious pressures in a “very complex diplomatic, national and legal environment”.

The Palestinian Authority condemned the measure to erect new homes, saying it sabotages negotiations.

Washington also disapproved, with a State Department representative reiterating the US position, “we do not accept the legitimacy of continued settlement activity.”

Military and civilian officials and experts are deliberating where to erect the new buildings in Beit El.  One option would place the buildings inside a military zone in the town.

   יְהִי-דָן נָחָשׁ עֲלֵי-דֶרֶךְ שְׁפִיפֹן עֲלֵי אֹרַח הַנּשֵׁךְ עִקְּבֵי-סוּס וַיִּפֹּל רֹכְבוֹ אָחוֹר

Dan will be a serpent by the roadside, a viper along the path, that bites the horse’s heels so that its rider tumbles backward. (Gen. 49:17)

Right wing activist Itamar ben Gvir was arrested by police on Wednesday during a demonstration outside the Knesset, as protesters reacted  to the rejection of a bill that would have saved their homes from needless demolition.

It appeared, as the verse in Genesis suggests, that when dealing with the folks on horseback, the well thought out, logical argument rarely wins the day.